What MOVIE(s) have you been....seeing? watching?

I can't decide if Cara Delevingne looks more like Grumpy Cat or just an angry teenager.

In real life she's got Daenerys eyebrows, so Grumpy cat:




In Valerian, neither. She looks like Starbuck for crying out loud:

This article looks like it could be helpful to someone watching Dunkirk a second time:

Your Guide to the Similar-Looking Men of Dunkirk



www.vulture.com/2017/07/who-was-in-dunki...ors.html?wpsrc=nymag

i'm going to love the boy-ish one

Saw Dunkirk but it looks like you all got their first.

Nothing was going to live up to that hype, and it didn't, but it was very good. The unusual choice to throttle down on character and dialogue backfired occasionally because whenever there was a lull in the tension, it got boring. But there were few lulls in the tension. I spent much of it with hand clasped to mouth. It felt like Jaws with more guns.

The cinematography was great. The sound design was outstanding, among the best I've ever experienced. My local theater doesn't have the best sound system and it made me wished I'd driven a half hour to a bigger screen that does. I suspect this may count against in on Blu Ray release. I'm just not sure it'll work as well on a home screen.

Eschewing all CGI was perhaps a mistake. The occasional long shots across the beach and the bay lacked scale in terms of men and material. And it was a bit weird never to see more than three planes together in the sky at once.

Sagrilarus wrote: My golly, did the director not think to consult just one person with knowledge of the subject matter? Wrong paint jobs, wrong tactics, wrong everything. The entire aircraft thread was a mess.

I was interested by this criticism that it lacked realism. Certainly the essential elements of the history seemed real to me. It did lack any sense of strategy or tactics but it didn't feel important to the film. As for the dogfights, I don't know enough about air warfare to comment but if it's wrong, that's a shame. I did feel the scenes captured the importance of movement and maneuverability - a key reason, of course, why the Spitfire was so admired - which film rarely manages.

Mr. White wrote: Does this mean Kelly's Heroes is still the best war movie?

Jesus...NO! Everybody knows that Walk in the Sun is the best war movie ever. (discounting hokey folk song)

repoman wrote:

Mr. White wrote: Does this mean Kelly's Heroes is still the best war movie?

Jesus...NO! Everybody knows that Walk in the Sun is the best war movie ever. (discounting hokey folk song)

Dad's favorite war movie. He'd know having been a infantry scout in the ETO.

Black Barney wrote: In real life she's got Daenerys eyebrows, so Grumpy cat:

In Valerian, neither. She looks like Starbuck for crying out loud:

Just gonna leave this here:

MattDP wrote: I was interested by this criticism that it lacked realism. Certainly the essential elements of the history seemed real to me. It did lack any sense of strategy or tactics but it didn't feel important to the film. As for the dogfights, I don't know enough about air warfare to comment but if it's wrong, that's a shame. I did feel the scenes captured the importance of movement and maneuverability - a key reason, of course, why the Spitfire was so admired - which film rarely manages.

I kept shouting "press the goddam trigger" in my head every time he lined up a shot... never leading the German plane always waiting until the site hovered just over the target. In my training and experience as an WWII RAF pilot (when playing a video game) you've got to get an early squirt on those cabbage crates over the briny or you'll be going for a burton.

I thought the movie had the right amount everything. I particularly liked the jumbled time sequence and thought it effectively wrapped me into the story.

Hadik wrote:

MattDP wrote: I was interested by this criticism that it lacked realism. Certainly the essential elements of the history seemed real to me. It did lack any sense of strategy or tactics but it didn't feel important to the film. As for the dogfights, I don't know enough about air warfare to comment but if it's wrong, that's a shame. I did feel the scenes captured the importance of movement and maneuverability - a key reason, of course, why the Spitfire was so admired - which film rarely manages.

I kept shouting "press the goddam trigger" in my head every time he lined up a shot... never leading the German plane always waiting until the site hovered just over the target. In my training and experience as an WWII RAF pilot (when playing a video game) you've got to get an early squirt on those cabbage crates over the briny or you'll be going for a burton.

I thought the movie had the right amount everything. I particularly liked the jumbled time sequence and thought it effectively wrapped me into the story.

Spitfires had about 15 seconds of ammunition, so you had to be frugal. The guy in the movie must have stopped to reload.

During the early war Merlin carburetors were tuned to 12,000 feet (this was a big, big deal in the war by the way, engines that are tuned to perform at low altitude suck at high altitude) and there is no good reason to be flying on the deck. At one point on of the pilots even says it -- "the enemy will come after you from out of the sun". Sounds like a pretty good idea, yes? Here's a thought, maybe you should fly your plane higher than the enemy so you can do that. They did during the actual battle. Most of the soldiers on the ground didn't see RAF fighters because the battle was taking place over the clouds. There's a lot of advantages to the altitude, especially speed. Fighters give up altitude at their peril, the reason Spitfires were tuned to 12,000 feet.

The other issue I had was that the RAF pilots were engaging enemy fighters. Enemy fighters can't sink Destroyers. Their job was to engage enemy bombers. Granted you have to deal with enemy fighters, but there were a couple of places in the film where they pressed onto the fighters or stayed on with them after they didn't have to.

Flying incredibly close together, like three feet apart at one point, Jesus. They don't even park them that close to each other. One pass of a 109 could conceivably take all three out of battle. They would fly at several hundred yards distance from each other, so that they could fall in behind in case a 109 decided to insert itself in between.

109s were painted wrong . . . doesn't matter but damn, Turn is a low budget cheesy TV show and they have the proper British Jack flag and the uniforms are spot on. This is a major film. Anybody think to ask? Gear down on a beach landing is suicide, especially in a Spitfire, shooting down a diving plane while you're coasting at 400 feet presumably working your maximum glide path is just retarded bullshit. I appreciate I'm harder to please than most, but for Chrissake you don't see this bullshit in movies anymore. There's people that get paid to tell you these sorts of things.

There were about 80 total Destroyers and Troop Ships that evacuated the vast majority of the troops. I don't expect to see that many on the horizon, but it might be worth a mention. The weather was completely socked in during the actual battle but who wants to see a movie on a rainy day.

Sagrilarus wrote: Flying incredibly close together, like three feet apart at one point, Jesus. They don't even park them that close to each other. One pass of a 109 could conceivably take all three out of battle. They would fly at several hundred yards distance from each other, so that they could fall in behind in case a 109 decided to insert itself in between.

I haven't seen it, but I think this part of the criticism might be misplaced. Britain didn't learn those lessons until much later in the Battle of Britain. At Dunkirk the units were still generally by the book, which for Fighter Command was precise formation flying (to bring all the squadron's guns to bear). It was stupid, but it was what was taught.

RAF Museum on this very thing. This was well drilled into me by Derek Robinson's Piece of Cake, probably the best WWII novel I've read (and they made a nice 6-part Masterpiece Theater out of it, but not a big Hollywood movie).

Based on everything else you said, they probably lined them up that close just to look nice on camera, but being wingtip-to-wingtip isn't really out of place for British fighters in 1940 at all.

*Sigh*...guess I shouldn't be surprised that nobody cared about Valerian. I still haven't gone to see it, I guess I will just wait two weeks for it to come to on demand.

In surrogate anticipation, I watched The Fifth Element again for like the 10,000th time. Still a favorite. I remember seeing it in the theater and thinking, "I wonder if this audience has any idea that this is the best Heavy Metal/Metal Hurlant movie ever made". There's really not much else that captures that French SF comics vibe...the mix of absurdity, sincere SF, a little sexiness, a little sentimentality.... so perfectly. I mean, when you've got Moebius and Jean-Paul Gaultier on your production staff...

My other memory of seeing it on opening night was my buddy Dan blurting on the way out "the fifth element is pussy!" Which isn't really the case, it's love. But it was still hilarious.

I'm doing that "thing" I do where I get sort of obsess-y over a good but not necessarily great movie. This time, it's Kong. I bought the disc and I've watched it like every day since. There's some really clunky stuff in it (Chinese girl...) and I don't think it is quite as smart as I think the director and writers thought it was, but it is a super fun monster movie with some really neat scenes. There's one shot I just love, which is totally fake sadly, where the camera pans in one take between the helicopters in the first Kong attack. That was so cool. I also love the general "jungle adventure" feel of the whole thing, and of course as many have noted John C. Reily is an MVP. The leads are just boring- Hiddleston and Larson- and Sam Jackson pretty much plays Sam Jackson. Weirdly I really like John Goodman in it, even though he's not given much to do other than have a beard.

Watching it- and the "Monsterverse"-building epilogue I missed in the theater- prompted me to watch the 2014 Godzilla again, which I derided greatly on the first viewing. I was a little more accommodating of what the movie is trying to do this time out- which is to build this sort of "mystery" like in the '58 film that gradually escalates to the big attack. In retrospect, it's kind of not fair to bag on the movie for not having enough Godzilla because most bona fide Japanese Godzilla movies- at least the good ones and Final Wars notwithstanding- feature G for like 10% of their running time. If you go back and watch 'em, they have like 70 minutes of reporters or whatever running around (with that REALLY LOUD clup-clup-clup-clup/clothes rustling sound) doing boring shit until the suits and models roll out intermittently.

The problem is, above all else, the main character may as well have been a slab door. That dude is just about the more boring human being ever put on film. His family, Elizabeth Olsen's cuteness aside, is a terrible and uninteresting attempt to crank up the human interest and make a play for the film being about more than just monster mania. The part with his dad was more convincing, and really the entire "wife and kid" angle could have been axed.

Watching it this time, what struck me about it is how closely it really does follow a general, classical Godzilla plotline. Weird discovery, strange readings, scientists looking at graphs, OMG monster, hang on now we've figured it out, OMG there's two of them, scientists and military folks come up with a plan to lure/bait/kill them, and then the big showdown. I really think the wife and kid bit jeopardizes that.

I liked the MUTOs more this time out, they have biologically interesting concept and they fit into traditional G themes...what with them eating radiation and all of that.

But god damn it, there are still two INSANELY stupid moments. One is when the MUTOs show up in Las Vegas, and people are gaming in packed casinos. There has been no evacuation order, and no one seems to notice until they are strolling down Las Vegas Blvd. The other is when the wife goes down into the shelter, and the doors CLOSE on the first big fight between G and one of the MUTOs. That is just obnoxious.

So my opinion of it bumped up somewhat, giving it more of a chance rather than just bagging on it because it's not a camped-out goofathon like Final Wars.

Now I really want to see Shin Godzilla for comparison's sake. And I want to go back and watch those 90s G films.

The Fifth Element is one of my all-time favorites, but the advance buzz on Valerian is a bit negative. For what it's worth, just last Halloween I saw a very credible Leeloo, complete with multipass.

Re-watched Breaking Away again this morning. It's available on HBO Go.

Man I really like this movie. So much of it just exudes authenticity. That existence in a nowhere town at the time of life after high school where so many think "Now what..." as life doesn't automatically go in the direction you wish it would. Being filmed entirely in Bloomington Indiana certainly adds to that gritty feeling of actually being there. The run down cars, the run down houses, the run down people...except for the bright shiny ones at the local campus of Indiana University.

It does suffer from a "Bad News Bears" ending which I think may have been cliche even in 1979. Outside of that I think it's an outstanding film populated by people who are likeable despite their glaring flaws.

And the scene where he keeps pace with the tractor-trailer and the driver is indicating his speed out of the window is one of my all time favorite movie moments.

Fifth Element is one of my favorite movies, too. I re-watch it at least once a year (now that my son is into it, more), it is one of those rare movies that gets better and better with time. My 3 year old daughter does the multipass routine and it's hilarious.

Valerian tries hard to be like Fifth Element and fails miserably. It even has its "diva moment", courtesy of Rihanna. Actually, even though Rihanna's performance is nowhere close to Diva's, and is just not nearly as impactful, she's the most accomplished character in the movie... which kind of again just pinpoints how shallow are the rest of the characters.

Dunkirk is a good film. Here is the thing about Nolan. His only film I really like and consider to be a masterpiece is The Dark Knight. But every one of his films is worth watching at least once and better on big screen, and Dunkirk is no exception.
However - and I am not familiar at all with the real story - at no time I believed that there are 400,000 people on that beach or that this is a large-scale evacuation. It felt like 10,000 men at most, but probably way less. Let's hope that Lucas picks it up for remaster one day and adds ten times more CGI privates, planes and boats.

Kong Island is the best movie of the year so far. It is so honest about what it is and wants to be it is almost auteur cinema.